In celebration of his new, epic summer reality series, “Expedition Impossible,” Mark Burnett will be up on Twitter at @MarkBurnettTV on Thursday, June 23 from 9:00-10:00 p.m., ET and PT, during the premiere of the show, to offer commentary on the exciting action taking place, as well as behind-the-scenes anecdotes.

In addition, ABC.com will host a live “Chat Party” during the airing of “Expedition Impossible,” where viewers can come to the site, take a look at Mark’s tweets and chat with other fans during the show. The “Chat Party” will go live at 9:00 p.m., ET/6:00 p.m., PT on Thursday and remain live until the conclusion of the west coast airing at 10:00 p.m., PT.

It had beautiful scenic. The aerial shots were quite impressive but otherwise not very interesting.What I didn't like was that from every team we got to see and hear only one or two members. I guess with 13 teams and 3 persons in every team it does not allow for a lot of screen time for everyone. But some team members got more air time that whole other teams did.

This is ABC's answer to the popularity of The Amazing Race. 13 teams of 3 are racing in Morocco's sand dunes, mountains, rivers, cliffs and difficult trails to avoid elimination each episode, which will happen to the last-place team. There are 10 stages containing a series of checkpoints. The team that crosses the ultimate finish line first gets $150,000 and three brand new Ford Explorers. The teams are from all across the U.S. To me, the most impressive was No Limits, which had blind Erik on their team. It should be pointed out that Erik has reached the summit of Mt. Everest, which I doubt that anyone on another team had done.

Ep. 1 "Sun! Sand! Sahara!"

The expedition used a caravan of vehicles to transport the teams to a remote section of the Sahara Desert. Host Dave Salmoni revealed to each team that if one member of the team quits, the rest are also out.

The teams crossed through two flags atop a massive sand dune in order to see their first checkpoint. The Gypsies took an early lead which means they got their choice of the camels for the next leg of the journey. Choosing a camel isn't easy and neither is getting on one without serious help.

Back on the dune, Chad of the Country Boys had a rough time with endurance in the 100+ degree heat, seated on the sand while the ladies of Latin Persuasion step over him. Chad's teammates motivated him to press on. At the camel station, Grandpa's Warriors got underway, but Latin Persuasion was not moving as a result of internal bickering. Mounting a camel in the desert is different from navigating the New York city subway system.

The Gypsies, Fab 3 and the Football Players led the way, but No Limits reached the Lone Palm Camp checkpoint with Fab 3. The first challenge is to fill up one full jug of water. That's not easy to do in the middle of the desert.

Akbar of the Football Players pondered the notion of finding water "the old-fashioned way" by cutting open a hump in the camel. Not a great plan, since the jug of water was for each team's camels. AJ of Fab 3 wanted his team to dig under a tent. The Gypsies and No Limits help out. A short time later, they had unearthed a pool of water. The Football Players didn't help with the digging, but did tap into the well. Other teams arriving later took advantage of the water holes that were left behind by the lead teams.

Fab 3, Gypsies, Football Players and No Limits were the breakout leaders of the moment. The middle group consisted of Fishermen, Cops, Team Kansas, NY Firemen and California Girls. The back of the pack was Mom's Army, Country Boys, Grandpa's Warriors and the bickering Latin Persuasion.

At the next checkpoint, the teams must rappel more than 300 feet down the face of a gorge. Fab 3's Kari sheds a tear because of the intensity of the situation. She was scared, but sucked it up and made it down for the sake of her team. Football Player Akbar struggled with his descent, but blind man Erik of No Limits calls upon his climbing expertise to make it down with no issues. In Mom's Army, Eleanor's daughters have a rough time watching their mother struggle down the cliff, but in the end Eleanor persevered.

Once on the ground, the teams traveled down a dry riverbed to the center of Snake Valley. They must keep track of the number of snakes revealed during a Moroccan snake charmer routine. Then they choose a box bearing the correct number. If right, they were directed on a five mile hike to the finish line. If they miscount, they'll go 30 minutes off course until they hit a "wrong way" sign and have to double that penalty.

Fab 3, Gypsies and Football Players guess the correct number of snakes, but No Limits is off by one. They get it right the second time around, but the middle teams have caught up to them. Finally, Latin Persuasion also gets the snake count right, as do Grandpa's Warriors.

The Gypsies are the winners of Stage One. Fab 3 is second, followed by Football Players. 4th through 11th place goes to Team Kansas, Fishermen, No Limits, Country Boys, NY Firemen, California Girls, The Cops and Mom's Army. That leaves Latin Persuasion and Grandpa's Warriors in a battle for the final spot as they traverse the terrain down a mountain in the dark. Grandpa's Warriors nabs the 12th place slot which eliminated Latin Persuasion.

I will definitely watch all episodes of this inaugural season of Expedition Impossible and can recommend it to you. I am sure the producers paid a lot of money for the cooperation of the locals, who were involved in many different ways in the first episode and are likely to be so in future episodes.

It is clear that endurance and prior extreme sports skills are the most important ones to win this race. I think No Limits and Fab 3 have the advantage on this. The Football Players will go a long way, but they ultimately do not have the flexibility and endurance to win. I didn't see enough of the Gypsies to make a prediction yet for them.

All in all, I thought the biggest problem with the show is the presentation. I believe that TAR does a much better job at making the show more dramatic. The tasks were very interesting, but the editing is poor, which is a shame.

As for the teams, they are generally interesting. I like No Limits the best, but didn't like that they chose the wrong number of snakes (though counting the snakes did look considerably hard).

I will probably continue to watch the show, but it seems like it could be better to me.

I think to fairly review this show, we need to forget about TAR. If we constantly compare EI to TAR, in the end TAR will win. TAR has has 18 seasons to perfect it's formula. EI has had 1. Of course TAR will have a better opening segment, they have had 18 tries at it. Good Things About EI-Challenges are creative, and add a nice mental aspect to a very physical show-Teams of three add more minds and more opinons. Expect alot of 2 vs.1 action.Not So Good Things About EI-Editing is awful. With 13 teams and 6 challenges, it's hard to keep track. I thought Latin Persuasion was really far behind. Suddenly, they are right behind Mom's Army. WHAT!-Besides challenges, watching people hike & rappel is really no fun.-No opprtunity for teams to pass another.-Poor challenge design. The find water idea was great, but everyone mooched off of Fab 3's hole.I'm excited to see what happens next. Winner Prediction: Fab 3.

I like this show well enough, and I'll definitely watch the whole series. But what made me most upset is that they didn't introduce all the teams!!! The Cops, California Girls, Team Kansas, and a few others were just kinda thrown into the narration. It felt to me like, "Fab 3 and No Limits are in the lead, Latin Persuasion is falling far behind, and California Girls are also a team."

But ultimately, TAR has had 18 successful seasons. Expedition Impossible has had ONE EPISODE so far. It's really unfair to draw conclusions on what the series will be like based on one episode. Episode 1 of TAR 2 also didn't show all teams completing every task, so I'm not gonna completely write the show off for that one transgression.

As I commented at the time last night, the opening ten minutes of EI truly sounded like a poorly done rewrite of the first 10 minutes of original TAR ten years ago. I was able to mentally anticipate what Dave Salomi was going to say next in that intro (such as the "Which team has...." part, which really did seem it was stolen from Phil.)

That said, it may pass for summer fare, but if anything better that grabs my interest more comes along, I may rely on DVR time shoifting, it is not appointment TV, that is for sure.

Anybody watch this? The chatter I am hearing is that it's similar to The Amazing Race but with teams of 3 and more physical. I missed the first show and will have to see it on line to catch up, but wondering if it's worth my time?

I think to fairly review this show, we need to forget about TAR. If we constantly compare EI to TAR, in the end TAR will win. TAR has has 18 seasons to perfect it's formula. EI has had 1. Of course TAR will have a better opening segment, they have had 18 tries at it. Good Things About EI-Challenges are creative, and add a nice mental aspect to a very physical show-Teams of three add more minds and more opinons. Expect alot of 2 vs.1 action.Not So Good Things About EI-Editing is awful. With 13 teams and 6 challenges, it's hard to keep track. I thought Latin Persuasion was really far behind. Suddenly, they are right behind Mom's Army. WHAT!-Besides challenges, watching people hike & rappel is really no fun.-No opprtunity for teams to pass another.-Poor challenge design. The find water idea was great, but everyone mooched off of Fab 3's hole.I'm excited to see what happens next. Winner Prediction: Fab 3.

This is what I think too. A good idea ruined by really bad post production work.

But the planning wasn't that great either. The water thing was dumb and the rest was boring. The tasks were interesting for the contestants but not the viewers.

I disagree with Coolio on the dumbness of the rappel (which I found thrilling and I know those doing it did too) and with Prophet on the dumbness of finding water. Figuring out that you had to dig for it was not rocket science, but I wish the Amazing Race would do some more tasks which involve more brainpower. I applaud the producers of Expedition Impossible for the creativity of their tasks. Watching teams walking on the trails is indeed boring, but you do have to get from task to task. Doing so on the Amazing Race is not that difficult, but doing that in desert heat above 100 degrees is quite a feat!

I actually liked the water searching. There were at least 3-4 teams looking for water and only Fab3 figured it out and even when more teams came. the Gypsies were the only ones to understand what's going on and helped. It gave us a first idea of the abilities of each time and also laid the foundation of future alliances. It's certain that Fab3 are not going to team up with the athletes any time soon. LOL.